Thursday, September 6, 2012

Keeping the switch on

Looking back at the previous post so many months ago I am pleasantly surprised at how much my attitude towards automation has changed. Since the end of June I have been on an automated version of my system and the results have been nothing if not impressive. Some takeaways over the past few months in my transition from mechanical manual trading to automation include:

Accepting drawdowns with a more passive attitude. The roll-out of the EA conincided with a technically poor Forex market. There was no volatility or serious volume coming into the market this summer--which is to be expected with many large traders off for the summer months. However I kept the controls on and sat passively while the system took it's lumps. It was perhaps the first time ever in my trading career where I allowed my account equity to drop without any attempt at hedging or removing stops. Ironically I feel I have grown as a trader by becoming less involved in my actual trades.

Having a healthy expectancy. By knowing how meantrades has performed in the past, keeping the switch on during drawdowns enables me to avoid missing the huge upswings in account equity. At the moment my expectancy is only around 1.3 for every dollar risked. Most long term systems tend to float around 1.5 to 2 for really huge returns. There are a few considerations on the lower expectancy such as trailing supertrend exits too closely during flattening volatility in the Asian session. Widening the supertrend stop as well as taking Friday afternoons off are two of the ideas I am toying with currently. Generally speaking though, 1.3 is enough for things to get very interesting in the long term. Currently meantrades is running at about 60% accuracy on the 3 markets I am trading everyday (those are EUR/USD, GBP/USD and the cfd for oil). I am thinking like a trend trader on this matter and would probably like to tighten the stops more, reduce the drawdown and get larger returns less frequently. All in due course. For now it's about keeping the switch on and maintaining a healthy expectancy.